Night Blind
by TailFear
Summary: What if Fry had managed to blow the passenger cabin like she wanted and escape with Owens in just the cockpit, leaving everyone who happened to survive behind? An alternate take on Pitch Black.


Disclaimer: I don't own _Pitch Black_ or _Chronicles of Riddick_ (at least until my order from comes in, then its another story about the movies…).

A/N: A good deal of the first chapter, such as dialogue, will be coming from the '99 screenplay I found by David Twohy, based on material by Ken and Jim Wheat. Bear with me until I split from the canon.

Summary: What if Fry had managed to blow the passenger cabin like she wanted and escape with Owens in just the cockpit, leaving everyone who happened to survive behind? An alternate take on _Pitch Black_.

**Night Blind **

By: TF

**Chapter 00: Prologue: Carolyn Fry, Victorious **

Fry struggled against the pull of sudden gravity, weaving and clutching her stomach as she fought to orient herself against the sudden weight of her body and propulsion from the cryo-sleep chamber. She grunted with pain when she tripped, then again when the air was crushed out of her lungs by the weight of her crewmember falling out of his chamber and on top of her. For a few seconds the two of them lay in a pile on the floor, dazed, alarm blaring somewhere in the background before Fry had the mind to shove Owens' mass off of her.

"Why did I fall on you?" he asked, disoriented, frantic.

"He's dead, Cap'n's dead. Christ," Fry breathed, "I was looking right at him when—"

Owens and Fry stumbled to their feet, swaying amidst the chaos of the shaking ship.

"I mean, I mean, chrono shows we're 22 weeks out, so gravity wasn't supposed to kick in for another 19: I mean, I mean, why did I fall at all?" Owens continued.

"You hear me? Captain's dead. Owens too," Fry said, her eyes wide.

"Oh, no," Owens moaned, "not Owens, not…wai', wai', wait. _I'm Owens_," he paused. "Right?"

They exchanged terrified looks, unsure of their own identities for a moment.

Fry shook her head, "Cryo-sleep. Swear to God, it kills brain cells."

Together they stumbled into navigation bay, Fry grabbing the warm-up suits from storage and tossing one to Owens before leaning over and checking her screens.

"One thousand five hundred fifty millibars, dropping 20 MB per minute, shit, we're hemorrhaging air. Somethin' took a swipe at us," Fry said.

"Just tell me we're still in the shipping lane. Just show me all those stars, all those bright, beautiful, deep space…" Owens trailed off as he activated an exterior view of the ship.

A planet rushed up, explaining the sudden gravity on the ship.

"Jesus God…"

Fry scrambled in the cockpit, pulling a headset over her ears as she made her way onto the flight deck. She rushed forward, using handholds to steady herself until she could pull herself through the hatch.

"They trained you for this, right? Fry? FRY?" Owens' voice crackled over her headset, but she ignored him, strapping herself into the pilot's seat.

She started running switches, fumbling a few times as her brain fought off the last lingering effects of cryo-sleep. Finally she opened the crash-shutters, revealing the cloud strata that was sweeping past the windshield at impressive speeds. They were shedding altitude like an elevator in free-fall.

Fry ran some more switches, ignoring Owens' muttering over the headset.

"…crisis program selected Number Two of this system because it shows at least _some_ oxygen and more than 1,500—would you SHUT THE FUCK UP?" The alarm stopped. "—more than 1,500 millibars of pressure at surface-level. Okay, so maybe the ship did something right for a change…"

Fry continued to run switches on the flight deck, closing the jettison doors around the ship. She flipped the security switch, then thumbed the switch below as shots fired around the ship's skin and everything non-essential to aerodynamics fell away. The ship fell into a sickening roll, sending cloud strata swirling past the as it barreled through. Fry threw the actuators quickly, deploying the airbrakes. The airbrakes killed the roll, but left the ship coming in nose-high.

Owens continued to mutter about the terrain until he was surprised by the jettison doors closing him off from the passenger compartment. A shiver of fear ran through his body at the sight of the closed doors.

"Fry?" Owens called. "What are you doing?"

Fry flipped a new security latch, her face twisting with exertion.

"Fry?"

"I can't get my nose down…too much load back there…" Fry muttered as she concentrated on leveling the ship and slowing the ship's descent.

"You mean that "load" of passengers?"

"So what, we should both go down too? Out of sheer nobility?"

Fry's thumb hovered over the jettison button in the tortured silence.

"Look, Fry. Company says we're responsible for every one of those—"

"Company's not here, is it?" Fry snapped.

"When Captain went down, you stepped up—whether you like it or not," Owens shouted. "Now they train you for this, so—"

"And there wasn't a simulated cockroach alive within 50 clicks of the simulated crash site! _That's_ how they train you! On a fucking simulator!"

"Don't touch that switch!"

For a moment Fry was almost overcome by guilt and withdrew her thumb, but added resolve and the knowledge that she could at least get the two of them out alive without crashing. She pushed the button while Owens was still talking.

"I'm not dying for them."

Shots fired again, deafening as the passenger hold was released into free-fall. Fry got the ship under control in no time, righting the hull and controlling their momentum until they were no longer in free-fall. She flipped a few more switches and pulled the lever at her feet, activating the emergency thrusters. With a jolt the ship changed directions, rebounding off of the planet's atmosphere and ricocheting into space.

"Time to find that shipping lane," Fry growled.

"How could you Fry? We were RESONSIBLE FOR THEM!" Owens yelled over the headset.

"Easily. I just pushed the button."

Carolyn averted her eyes as the passenger hold hit the atmosphere and was engulfed in a fiery cornea. The passenger hold was air tight and coming in at an angle. If they were lucky they would stay in cryo-sleep until the hold crashed, sparing at least a few of the passengers. But that was if they were lucky. Fry watched her screen and sighed. She would have to get a new ship and come back for them after docking at the nearest station.

**TBC...**


End file.
